Steve Jobs died of respiratory arrest and a pancreatic tumor, according to his death certificate released Monday. The Apple Inc. co-founder and chairman died around 3 p.m. Wednesday in his Palo Alto home, the certificate noted. Apple and Jobs' family announced his death Wednesday but did not provide details about the time, place or cause. Jobs resigned as Apple chief executive Aug. 24. He had been diagnosed in 2003 with a neuroendocrine tumor on his pancreas, and he underwent a liver transplant in 2009.

A beginning elementary school teacher in a small district in California makes around $40,000 per year. That's 2 or 3 thousand dollars more than poor Larry Ellison brings in -- but Ellison, the CEO of Oracle Corp., earns it in an hour. There's nothing that illustrates the vast and growing wealth gap in America more starkly than a list of the incomes enjoyed by the top business executives in the country. A new study done for the New York Times found that pay for the 100 top CEOs jumped 9% from 2012 to 2013, raising their median annual compensation to nearly $14 million.

Apple.com might be giving away some of Tim Cook's announcements planned for Wednesday, according to multiple reports. Nine to 5 Mac is saying that you can see some of what Apple has planned for its announcement Wednesday if you use the search function on the company's website. Among the secrets being divulged is the name of the next iPhone, which seems like it will be called the iPhone 5. Rumor roundup: The new iPhone If you go to this link , you can see various search results for the term "iPhone 5" that include a couple of URLs with the name in them.

Apple's stock is on a tear following the electronics giant's announcement it would buy back $60 billion in stock and boost its dividend 15% to $3.05 a share. The huge buyback plan and dividend increase eclipsed a somewhat disappointing second-quarter earnings report in which profit dipped for the first time in a decade. The company also forecast that its earnings in the current quarter would be lower. Apple shares are up more than $20 to $426.79 in after-hours trading. The stock closed at $406.13, up $7.64, in regular trading.

SAN FRANCISCO - In the biggest management shake-up since Tim Cook took the helm, Apple has ousted two top executives blamed for a pair of embarrassing missteps. Apple Inc. said Scott Forstall, its longtime executive and a protege of co-founder Steve Jobs, was leaving the company. As head of the mobile software division, Forstall oversaw the iOS operating system that runs the best-selling iPhone and iPad that together account for the bulk of Apple's sales. But the 15-year Apple veteran also was responsible for one of the company's highest-profile gaffes: replacing Google Inc.'s maps with Apple's own faulty mapping software.

Losing your company $2 billion apparently causes investors to respect you less, according to a recent survey conducted by Barron's. After an investment group within JPMorgan was found to have lost $2 billion in trading, the bank's listing on Barron's annual survey dropped to 49th this year from 14th last year. After the loss, JPMorgan's chief executive apologized for the risky trading before a congressional committee. Apple again took the top spot, even after its leadership changed when Steve Jobs died last fall.

Another day, another few billion dollars of Apple's market cap bounced around like a ping-pong ball by the stock market. After flirting with the $500 barrier early in trading on Monday, the stock rebounded and was up 0.48% to $ 512.25 in mid-day trading. The gut-wrenching ride seemed to be driven by the usual mixed bag of data points. PHOTO TIMELINE: Apple, from Foxconn uprising to a Mini roll-out It's become almost routine, as I wrote over the weekend in a story that tried to explain the extraordinary economic impact and volatility of Apple's stock . But there was a related question that people discussed in the reporting of that story that I didn't include: Is there anything Apple could do to reduce the volatility of its stock?

August 25, 2011 | By Walter Hamilton, Dawn Chmielewski and David Sarno, Los Angeles Times

Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Inc. and driving force behind a string of products that revolutionized the consumer-electronics industry, stepped down as chief executive but was named chairman of the board, the company said late Wednesday. His relinquishing of daily control had been widely anticipated since he took an extended medical leave earlier this year. Jobs, 56, had a liver transplant two years ago and underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer seven years ago. Photos: Steve Jobs and Apple's influence "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know," he wrote in a letter to the board Wednesday.

Here's one aspect of Steve Jobs' legacy that Tim Cook, his successor at the helm of Apple, must be hating Wednesday: the company's reputation for lowballing its sales and profit estimates. The company found itself in the odd position of reporting better results than it had projected -- and, more objectively, higher quarterly sales and profits than the year before -- yet having its stock hammered in after-hours trading. Why? Because analysts had predicted much higher sales and profits, and thus were surprised and disappointed.

With fewer than nine hours left, an auction to have a fancy steakhouse lunch with Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett has received a top bid of $775,100 Friday. The 14th charity auction closes at 7:30 p.m. Pacific time and raises money for Glide, a San Francisco anti-poverty nonprofit. The auction got off to a strong start earlier this week , but as of Friday it's still nowhere near the record $3.5 million one anonymous winner bid last year. PHOTOS: Warren Buffett in the news Buffett, however, may see some consolation in that his companionship is at least worth more than that of Apple Inc.'s chief executive, Tim Cook.